This course aims at showcasing and exploring the extensive and deep links between the art of literature and the science of psychology which has long been used as an analytical tool and source of inspiration for the former. Students shall be familiarized with the major psychological approaches to the analysis of literary texts, their terminology and limits, and then will be guided to apply this knowledge to the critical analysis of selected short stories and novels from the American and British canon. The outcome for the students shall be not only a greater capacity in producing informed and profound critical discourses regarding literature, but a deeper understanding of the American mind of the 19th, 20th, and 21st century, as revealed through literature. Furthermore, questions of narrativity shall be engaged, such as the correlation of the inner world (and its representational mechanisms) to that put on paper, the transformations of the Imaginary once it enters the Symbolic, and the effect of the written word—and its affective "forepleasure"—to our unconscious syntax.

The course shall be implemented through various projects, discussions, lectures, and the writing of a final research paper (12-15 pages) on a topic approved by the instructor.

Instructor: Christina Dokou